


Mimicry - Sam's Shifting Angel

by Jenosavel



Series: Sam's Shifting Angel [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Betrayal, F/M, Family, Leviathans, Original Mythology, Season/Series 07, Second Chances, Shapeshifter, Tragic Romance, original creature
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-11-26 08:51:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20927486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenosavel/pseuds/Jenosavel
Summary: Sam and Dean met a new kind of creature not mentioned in any lore. She came with a tale that was difficult to believe and then disappeared again just as quickly. End of story? Not quite. When she reappears conveniently right after the brothers have bagged their first Leviathan, Dean's suspicions are on high alert. He's not the only one on edge, though, and the leviathans aren't the only threat in the cabin.-----A one-off mini-fic in the Sam's Shifting Angel series. If you haven't read A Day Without Yesterday, you'll enjoy this fic more after reading that one first.





	Mimicry - Sam's Shifting Angel

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during the events of S7E6. Contains spoilers for S7E6.

Bobby didn't have the leviathan in the chair for more than two hours when there was a knock at the door. 

It wasn't the sheriff though. This woman was shorter, plainer, and notably pregnant. Bobby's first instinct was to pretend no one was here. Any regular folk didn't need to be in the same house as a leviathan, and any monster would be easier to deal with inside where there were traps to spring. The woman, however, didn't go away. 

"Bobby, I know you're in there," she called, pounding on the door again. "I'm a friend of Sam's."

If it was true, all the more reason to keep her out.

"Damnit Bobby," she swore. "I'm here about what's in the basement. I'll be in and out before you know it."

Bobby frowned. Sam and Dean had only just delivered the bagged leviathan in the wee hours of the morning and were less than 5 minutes gone on a supply run. The timing of it all stunk to high heaven, but he couldn't exactly leave her there pounding on the cabin door and drawing attention either. This place was supposed to be abandoned.

He reluctantly opened the door. "C'mon in then. No good shoutin' stuff like that outside." 

"Thanks," she nodded to him as she entered, but hardly even slowed as she made a beeline towards the basement stairs. Bobby barely had time to close the front door and catch her wrist before she was gone down them.

"Whoa whoa whoa," he said quickly. "If you know what's down there, then you know you don't wanna tangle with it."

She sighed and nodded. "I need to see it Bobby. Don't want to. Need to." 

"That how it is?" he eyed her up and down once. She had a small frame, the kind that could blow away in a strong wind, but he'd seen scrawnier hunters. Scrappy. The kind you didn't want to corner. Some of them had even hunted pregnant, though most tried not to.

"How do you know Sam again?" 

"We worked together on a job," she answered, one hand drifting to the swell of her belly, "oh, 'round about seven months back."

Bobby pressed his lips together and grunted. Seven months should have put her after Sam had reclaimed his soul. If he was being honest with himself, he'd been waiting for something like this to crop up from Sam's soulless days, but he'd never have guessed it of the normal Sam. 

"Why do you need to see what's downstairs?" he asked. "I'm not inclined to let anyone near where it can reach, least of all _ friends_." 

"I need to do a test," she answered. "There's something about them that I need to know." 

"You and me both," Bobby agreed, "but if there's a test you know that I don't, well, I'm _ mighty _ curious, and I'd be more than happy to do it for you if you clue me in."

She hesitated, but Bobby didn't budge. He meant every word. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, wrestling with something she didn't want to say. Bobby only waited. 

"It's a test only I can do," she said at last. "The same way there are some tests only Castiel would be able to do." 

"Now I'm even more curious." Bobby raised an eyebrow. "Last I checked, angels don't breed."

"I'm not an angel," she agreed. "I just have… certain gifts." 

"If you really are a friend of Sam's," he sighed, "especially _ that _ kind of friend, he wouldn't be too appreciative of me letting anything happen to you." 

She got a stubborn look in her eye then, a steely edge that reminded Bobby a little too much of Dean.

"I'm not too appreciative of needing to do this in the first place," she said curtly, "but the kind of thing I can detect, we both need to know. Trust me." 

"We just met, so trust isn't really part of things yet, is it?" Bobby kept his voice calm and steady. That always worked best with Dean when he was stubborn. "Give me a _ reason_, girl."

The woman's jaw clenched, but she didn't look away. "I can tell whether or not things can be killed."

"That's a useful skill," Bobby grunted, "and it implies you've seen things that can't be." 

The woman's lips pressed into a thin white line. "I have."

"Well then," Bobby gestured towards the basement door, "let's hope it's good news."

"I…" she hesitated, not immediately moving. "My name is Dawn. Thank you." 

Her voice wasn't thankful though. It was resigned. Bobby hoped Sam would forgive him if things went sideways. 

The test itself made little sense to Bobby. Dawn took thick gloves out of an inner pocket of her jacket. They were thick enough to be work gloves, damn near oven mitts but with more articulation. They were too clean to have ever been used, however, made of pristine white leather that would show such things. She pulled them on grimly, and then stepped behind the leviathan, placing her gloved hands on either side of its head. She closed her eyes and held there, almost as if praying.

After a few minutes, her head jerked up at a sound Bobby couldn't hear. She stepped back quickly, yanking the gloves off and tossing them on the floor. They were stained an inky black where they had touched the leviathan. 

"Burn those," she said, hurrying for the stairs without even looking at Bobby.

"Now wait just a minute!" He caught her by the elbow as she tried to pass. She tugged, but he held firmly. She was stronger than she looked, but not by much. 

"You can't do all this and not tell me," he scolded. "Can they be killed or not?" 

"Oh they can be killed," she answered, "but I don't know any more than that. For all I know it could take an act of God to do them in."

"That's still something, at least," Bobby said, letting go, and she darted up the stairs like a spooked rabbit. He followed at a more reasonable pace, and reached the top just in time to see Dean walk in the front door. Dawn froze.

_Too late. _

Dean took one look at her, eyes widening when they passed over her belly, and grimaced. He remembered, and he could put two and two together.

"Aw hell no," he muttered to himself.

_Should have been faster. Shouldn't have let him see._

Dawn lurched sideways to the counter, eyes fixed on Dean and one hand fumbling across the counter top for a weapon. There was nothing within reach, but that didn't matter, not to her. In the next moment there was a knife in her hand, a knife made of herself, as she had once done with a gun. The fumbling was a smooth cover though, and Bobby didn't notice anything unnatural.

"Don't touch me," she warned, eyes locked on Dean. "And don't reach for the gun either. I know how to throw these." 

Not that she wanted to. The knife was her afterall, and there was a reason she had thus far avoided touching Dean. He didn't know that though. Didn't need to either. To him the threat was real. He held his hands up in a disarming gesture, but Dawn didn't relax.

"Lady, look. I got bigger issues right now than you," he said. "So you mind putting the knife down?" 

She hesitated, eyes darting to Bobby for a second. Bobby nodded, giving her his most reassuring look.

_Good_. Make them think they were manipulating her, that they were in control.

"Yes you do," she agreed, keeping her defensive posture. "I'm gonna need your word first. No killing me today." 

"Done," Dean said easily and looked surprised when she relaxed, dropping the knife to her side. She took several steps closer along the counter, just enough to block Bobby's view of another knife sitting there, a knife that was the exact twin of the one in her hand. She lifted her hand and her copy of the knife smoothly melted back into her palm. Then she picked up the one on the counter just enough that it could make a noise as she set it back down.

All, of course, where Bobby couldn't see the details. He'd hear the knife being set down and later see that it was there. 

"Oh you're good, lady," Dean complimented, though the compliment stopped at his voice. His frame was rigid, his fingers twitching towards his gun.

"Not. Today," she reminded him, then turned her back on the knife. "God he's an ass. How do you both put up with him?"

Bobby snorted.

"Wait," Dean squinted and shook his head. "Just like that, you trust me?" 

"Your word's good as far as this one promise goes." She shrugged. "It's the only thing that's ever stopped you before, and this day isn't particularly special."

"Before?" Bobby scoffed, but turned his feet back down the stairs. "I'm going back to work. Someone needs to figure out how to kill these things. You know where to find me."

"I really oughta gank you right now, lady," Dean whispered so that only she would hear, but his fingers no longer twitched.

"But you won't," she answered, eyes darting to the door. She could feel Sam out there. He'd been puttering around with something, but now he was moving towards them.

"Sam," she muttered half to herself. "I need to go. He-" 

"You're not going anywhere, not without answering some questions," Dean stated flatly, stepping to block the door, but then he hesitated and turned to stick his head out.

"Sam!" he shouted. "We forgot the pie!" 

He tossed his keys and then closed the door again, turning back to Dawn grimly. 

"There," he said. "No Sam, no rush. Answers." 

Dawn sighed as she felt him move away again. She wasn't avoiding him exactly, but it was better to limit unnecessary contact while Lucifer still rattled around in there. Heck, even sitting on the same furniture was more contact than she wanted to be making at the moment, but she'd allow herself this indulgence. She really was quite pregnant, afterall, and for everything else she might be, this body was still human. 

She walked over to the couch and eased herself down onto it, turning her attention to the brother that remained and the more immediate problem he posed. "Dean, do you know how many times you've killed me already?" 

Dean's face shifted from grim determination to wariness, his body going still. 

"Yeah, me neither," she laughed wearily. "I lost count somewhere upwards of 50."

"So you know one more wouldn't be a problem." Dean's voice was a threat, but his posture was cautiously restrained.

"You killed me easily. Every single time," she agreed. Let him think that was why she avoided him. "And every single time it surprised you that I died so easily. Or at least, this body died anyways. Of course, that doesn't really kill _me_, not even outside of a time loop." 

Dean shifted his weight, his grimace growing stonier.

"Every single time, I had to watch from inside my dead body while you figured out how to dispose of my corpse."

_Don't question why. Think about Sam instead._

"And every single time I had to watch Sam struggle through helping you dispose of me while pretending not to know me."

She watched Dean as carefully as he watched her, two quiet storms with only the thinnest buffer of agreement holding them apart. 

"My nature was a wedge between you, but your own actions were the hammer that drove it home. Day after day the same story. Lie to his face, kill me behind his back, and break his heart with both. You'd forget. He'd remember, and after a while, he couldn't handle it anymore. A few times he even killed you before you touched me."

Every line of Dean's body went straight and sharp. "That a threat?"

Dawn dipped her head to the side and raised a hand in acquiescence.

"Just making sure we understand each other," she said, then watched Dean's eyes a moment before adding, "That's why I wiped Sam's memory, Dean. And make no mistake that it was me who did it. You owe me for that."

A long silence stretched between them.

Dean's lip curled, but when he finally moved, it was to go to the counter and pour himself some whiskey. 

"So why are you here?" he asked, voice a barely concealed snarl.

"I came for the leviathan," Dawn answered stiffly, as if the subject change were uncomfortable rather than a relief. "I knew as much as Sam knows, which isn't much, and I thought… Well, frankly, I thought it might be one of my people." 

"Thought?" Dean asked. "As in, you don't anymore."

"No, thank goodness," she agreed, and the relief in her voice made Dean raise an eyebrow. 

"So what, even you don't like your own kind?" 

She snorted at that.

"I have nothing against my kind," she said, though her voice held no warmth. "I love my family as fiercely as you do yours. But..." 

She gave him a sidelong look and hesitated, then sighed and waved a hand. 

"Screw it. You might as well know. If it was any of my kin I'd have known they were here before you and Sam could blindly stumble across them. I'd have felt them, and I felt nothing leading up to this." She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. "If it was one of my people and I didn't feel it, well, let's just say that kind of turf war is the last thing you want on your backwater little planet, not if you want to keep your sun intact."

Dean poured himself more whiskey and knocked it back in one motion. 

"The sun?" he hissed. "Really?" 

Dawn's lips pulled back to show teeth on one side, her smile becoming entirely too much like bared fangs.

"Oh yes," she agreed. "If you remember, I called myself a dayshifter. Day as in sun. As in sun _ eater_."

She let the words hang. Dean's lip twitched, though not his fingers. They were past the point where he'd try anything with a gun. Not powerful enough, and now he knew it. Good. Progress. 

"No need to worry," she went on, though Dean's mouth tightened. "I'm still quite young by our standards. I couldn't eat your sun if I wanted to, and even if I could, I wouldn't. _ My _ family hasn't dined on populated systems for at least four generations, thank you very much. But trust me when I say that not everyone has such compulsions."

Dean took a deep breath through his nose.

"So bottom line, the leviathans are not…" He pointed at Dawn and wagged his fingers before shrugging. "They're not… _ your _ kind of monster."

"They are not," Dawn agreed.

"Do you know how to kill them?" Dean's tone shifted abruptly, the new seriousness almost an apology in itself as if all other grievances were forgotten within the span of that question. 

Dawn shook her head. "Their physical bodies are similar enough to ours. Cruder though, mere imitators. They have to hold a shape willfully. They can't make it real, because they have nothing else to hold on to." 

"English," Dean demanded. 

Dawn rolled her eyes. "You kill me, I become a human corpse. You burn that, it becomes ash. Maybe later that ash turns up again all put back together and decidedly not dead anymore."

Nevermind how long that might take, or what it would cost. Nevermind that a good burning might send her away for a generation or more. Dean didn't need to know that part.

"But them? Those leviathans?" she continued without missing a beat. "You kill one of them and they lose all cohesion, revert to ooze."

"We've seen them ooze," Dean agreed. "But they don't stay oozed. They put themselves back together just fine it seems." 

"They won't if you kill them." 

Dean eyed Dawn carefully. "Then they can be killed? How?"

"They can definitely be killed," Dawn agreed, "but I have no idea how." 

"You're mighty sure for someone who doesn't know how."

Dawn nodded. This was her chance to put Dean off for a good while, and she grinned her most devilish grin for effect. "Everything born after Death can be killed, Dean. And those of us from before, well, it's a small club. We know each other."

Dean's jaw clenched and unclenched. Maybe he bought it. It was hard to say.

"Any weaknesses you can point out?" 

Dawn shook her head again, and Dean grunted. 

"Fat lot of use you are." 

Dawn ignored the little insult and continued on. 

"I can't investigate their composition too deeply. They're filthy. Corrupt. Vile. Too much contact and I'd start to adhere. I'd..." _Change_. She frowned and licked her lips. _Become that much more the calamity my family used to be._

That was also something Dean didn't need to know. She didn't just touch things, bond to them, she _became_ them. They left their mark on her as surely as she left hers on them. That was the way of things before Death showed up. No distinct beginnings and endings, only continuous rollover into something new.

It was bad enough that she'd already taken some part of Lucifer into herself through Sam, she wasn't going to risk spending any time around the leviathans too. Or Dean for that matter, though he posed a different kind of problem. 

She couldn't exactly say that, any of that, not to Dean, so instead she put as much disgust as she could muster into her voice and said, "I want no part of my soul tagging along with those _things_."

"Well on that we agree, at least." Dean nodded sharply. "I don't want them picking up anything sun-eater-y from you either. They're enough of a pain in the ass as it is." 

"That's not a risk." She dismissed the thought instinctively, waving a hand.

"Yeah, well I'm not so sure." Dean gave her a skeptical frown, and too late she realized it would have been better to let him believe it. She sighed. No choice now but to explain herself, whether or not he'd believe it.

"They touch me and they'll see a normal human with normal human DNA. They copy me and that's what they'll get. There's nothing to them beyond their physical beings. You remember all that extra stuff that Castiel could see of me?" 

"How could I forget?" Dean's tone asked if she thought he was stupid, but she ignored that too and pressed on. 

"Well all that extra glowy stuff is where I keep my sun-eater-y bits, and the leviathans lack any kind of equivalent. It's out of their reach. _ I'm _ out of their reach, same as if they copied an angel."

Nevermind that they could disperse her body just as easily as Dean burning her would. Nevermind that they could scatter her energy to the winds like they did with angels, and probably would given half a chance. Nevermind that putting herself back together after either of those would likely take longer than what remained of Dean's natural life. He didn't need to know that. He only needed to know what would keep him at arm's length in the here and now. 

Dean was quiet for a moment, then said slowly, "If that part of you is out of reach and can't be killed, you could be useful in this fight. Might be nice to have that kind of back up." 

"Aw Dean, miss having your own little pocket angel? Wanna keep me around just so long as I stay useful? Oh no, I don't think so." Dawn shook her head and kept shaking it as she pulled herself to her feet. She put more scorn into her voice than was strictly necessary. She didn't actually hate Dean, but it was useful just now for him to think so. The leviathans were simply too risky, and distrust was a convenient excuse he would believe, so she doubled down on it.

"Stick around? Sleep under the same roof? Turn my back on you? No." She stretched stiffly. "You promised not to gank me today, and that's about as far as I trust you."

"You just said it doesn't really kill you!" Dean protested. 

"Still hurts just as much as if it did, though," she shot back. "Cremation's a bitch too. And I'd rather not waste my strength on needless resurrections when there's this kind of crap out there."

Wasted strength indeed. Mortals always took for granted how much energy their physical bodies represented. They were so caught up on what they didn't have, on the metaphysical, the ethereal, light and energy. They never stopped to think about what they did have, how effortlessly, how _efficiently_, they drew new matter into themselves and ordered it. They never stopped to wonder why an angel couldn't make a vessel, or where souls came from, or what it meant that humankind's most powerful weapons were fueled by the power of plain, simple atoms.

Matter was expensive to manipulate and more expensive to coalesce out of stored energy. It was far cheaper to keep yourself in one piece in the first place, to make new bodies and generate new souls the old-fashioned mortal way. They never wanted to see that though. It was too mundane, too real, not sparkly enough. 

Dawn took a couple of steps towards the door, and Dean hesitated before letting her pass. When she reached the door, she looked back. She really shouldn't throw him any bones. He and his brother were too smart by half and she hadn't yet rebuilt the strength to run away from this planet if things got uncomfortable. But she didn't hate Dean and she rather enjoyed Sam, so despite her better judgement she added, "You saw how intertwined I am with Sam."

Dean grimaced. He wouldn't soon forget that sight, as much as he might like to.

"Yeah, about that. No more spying on Sam, or I _will_ hunt you."

She didn't doubt it, and she hoped she wasn't being foolish here. Even if she was, though, it felt right so she continued anyway.

"What you saw is what we call entangling. It isn't conscious. It's not intentional, not something I can turn on or off. Love, hate, indifference, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is contact. _Physical_ contact. I touch, I entangle. Plain and simple. Even just breathing the same air can be enough sometimes, if it happens regularly over a long enough period of time."

"You're not making me like you any more here, lady," Dean warned, but Dawn cut him off. 

"What I'm saying is, I'm not abandoning Sam." Her voice was sharp edged, and Dean fell quiet. "My connection to your brother exists, period. Neither of us intended for it to happen, but it did. I can't turn it off. I can't just make it go away, but it will fade with time. Hell, it's already fading. Every day I don't touch him it fades more." 

Dean considered her silently. 

"I'm doing the best I can to free Sam of any influence he doesn't want," she continued. "I'm leaving now, and I'm generally staying away, but not because I don't care. I do care. I care more than I'd like." 

Dean eyed her, a different look on his face this time. It wasn't quite understanding, wasn't quite acceptance, but it was something in that direction.

"I'm leaving to give Sam a choice," Dawn went on, "and to protect myself from all this crap that swirls around you. Keeping myself apart from all that is probably the best thing I can do to protect you both right now, but if things get bad enough and Sam decides to, he knows how to summon me." 

"Of course he does." Dean sighed with resignation.

"And if Sam calls me, I _will_ come, make no mistake." 

"Of course you will."

It was as close as they could come to an understanding, things being what they were, so Dawn left it there.

Dean watched her walk away, out the door and down the drive, for all the world as if she were any regular human. He poured himself another drink.


End file.
